UN paid millions to Russian aviation firm since learning of sex attack on girl

By The Guardian

Documents reveal United Nations unit uncovered possible ‘culture of sexual exploitation and abuse’ after 2010 attack by UTair crew member, but permitted company to continue receiving contracts worth millions.

The United Nations has spent half a billion dollars on contracts with a Russian aviation company since discovering one of its helicopter crews in the Democratic Republic of the Congo drugged and raped a teenage girl in a sexual attack.

Senior UN officials considered terminating the company UTair’s contract after concluding that the incident, in which the girl was dumped naked and unconscious inside the helicopter base, was indicative of a wider culture of sexual exploitation at the company.

Internal UN documents, marked “strictly confidential” and leaked to the Guardian, reveal how the UN’s internal complaints unit uncovered evidence the woman was abused with lit cigarettes and photographed lying on the ground. The UN concluded the shocking attack in 2010 was perpetrated by the manager in charge of UTair’s base in Kalemie, eastern DRC.

The main investigative report, from March 2011, warned of a possible “culture of sexual exploitation and abuse” at UTair. Copies of that report were circulated among top officials at the UN, including, in New York, the office of the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon.
FacebookTwitterPinterest Cover of report in to sexual abuse by UTair employees at a UN base called Kalemie in Democratic Republic of Congo. Photograph: OIOS

After what is described as collective “disgust” in the top echelons of the UN over the case, officials considered terminating UTair’s contract. Instead, the company was permitted to continue doing business with the UN on the condition it introduce a new training regime overseen by a monitor. UTair remains the largest provider of air transportation to the UN.

The disclosures come at a critical moment for the UN secretary general, who has struggled to contain the fallout from recent revelations concerning the sexual abuse of children by French and other peacekeeping troops in the neighbouring Central African Republic.

Last month Ban, who argues the UN has a “zero-tolerance” policy toward sexual exploitation, ordered an independent review of the case involving French peacekeepers and wider problems with dealing with sexual abuse, an issue that has plagued the UN for decades.
He will now be forced to explain how a company implicated in sexual exploitation managed to expand its contracts with the UN.

“It wasn’t just one or two bad apples,” said a senior UN official familiar with the report and its fallout. “It was clear the problems of sexual exploitation were wider.”

Since the damning report into UTair was completed four years ago, the company has been granted new contracts, or renewed existing deals, for helicopter support at UN missions in Lebanon, Western Sahara, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Somalia and Mali.

In total, the company, which is referred to in some documents as Nefteyugansk, a subsidiary operating in the DRC, has been granted contracts worth $543.3m for services provided in 11 countries since the UN became aware it had a problem with sexual exploitation.

The UN was notified of disturbing reports about UTair’s compound in Kalemie in August 2010. A local NGO relayed a complaint from the teenage girl who said she had been sexually assaulted by “pilots” who worked for the UN’s mission in the country, Monusco.